Wednesday, May 7, 2008

From the archives: Early "fame"

I came across these cuttings while having a sort out the other day. The first two are from nearly 20 years ago when some friends and I ran a self-published Viz-inspired comic called DoodleBug.

We sent copies out to various media outlets, most of whom ignored us. We did get a mention on the John Peel Show though and, for some reason, five glowing reviews (not bad as we only did eight issues!) in the now defunct Record Mirror. These are the last two. Click to enlarge and read the text.

The cutting below, worth posting for the dodgy hair and glasses, is from 1994. Universal Post was a magazine for students in Sunderland. It was independent, not connected to the university, and was my first regular paying gig. For a couple of years I did a strip every fortnight (A4, landscape, two decks) and they paid me £20 for it. Not a great deal of money even then, but I put it all into a separate bank account and eventually it paid for a holiday abroad.

I submitted some of the strips in a competition for student cartoonists run by Zit comic, to which this article refers. Click to enlarge and read the text.

Check out the "comedy" pose and me pretending to draw a strip I'd finished ages ago! By the way I didn't come second, there was only one winner and everyone else was a runner up. I think the paper decided second sounded better. The bit about me being drunk is a scurrilous lie.

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Click here to send an emailFreelance cartoonist. Clients include Private Eye, Spectator, Prospect, Paper House Cards, BBC Magazines, OUP, the Law Society, and more. If you would like to re-use any of the images here, or would like to commission Royston to draw cartoons, get in touch